This article details the frequently asked questions about Healthengine's Waitlist feature. The Waitlist feature is in the Bookings section of Practice Admin.
Contents
What does Healthengine's Waitlist Feature do?
Do I need to remove patients off the waitlist when they make a booking?
What happens if a patient already has an appointment, and then books a sooner Waitlist appointment?
Do I need to pay per SMS send?
Can patients add themselves to the Waitlist?
Can individuals add others to the waitlist?
What does the Waitlist text to a patient look like?
Do patients need to select a practitioner?
Does sending a patient a Waitlist SMS reserve that slot?
Do I need to use the Waitlist SMS function?
Can a patient make an appointment and be on a waitlist at the same time?
Is there a limit to the number of patients I can contact for one appointment slot?
How are entries sorted on the Waitlist?
How many entries are on the Waitlist?
What happens if an appointment time is no longer available?
What happens if I don't offer appointments for new or existing patients?
Can patients access the Waitlist from the app?
What does Healthengine's Waitlist Feature do?
Healthengine's Waitlist feature has two core elements: the first is to digitise the patient waitlist experience by having the waitlist in one central location, and allow patients to add themselves rather than having to call your front desk, freeing up time for staff to do other activities.
The second is to streamline the confirmation process when a suitable appointment comes up for a patient, and instead of having to call patients, Healthengine can now send them an SMS asking them to book the slot online and minimise the number of unfilled appointments.
How do I activate Waitlist?
If you are a GP practice on GP complete, Waitlist is included in your bundle for no additional cost. If you are on PES Essentials, or a Patient Connect subscription, you will need to contact your CSM directly to discuss eligibility and activating Waitlist at your practice.
If you are a Dental, Specialist or Allied practice, you will need to contact your CSM directly to discuss activating Waitlist at your practice.
Do I need to remove patients off the waitlist when they make a booking?
For the MVP version of this feature, if a patient makes a booking off a waitlist request their waitlist entry is still in the list. This means you are required to manually remove them to ensure you don't contact them again and offer them another appointment.
What happens if a patient already has an appointment, and then books a sooner Waitlist appointment?
Some patients will choose to make a booking and then add themselves to the waitlist to ensure they are contacted if an earlier appointment becomes available. If this happens, we recommend searching for their waitlist request entry and removing it if its no longer relevant AND discussing with your patient if they wish cancel or reschedule their original appointment to ensure there are no unexpected DNA or cancellation fees.
Do I need to pay per SMS send?
No! Healthengine provides the SMS sends to patients as part of this feature at no additional per SMS cost.
Can patients add themselves to the Waitlist?
Yes, if you want them too!
There is a setting that allows patients to add themselves to the Waitlist, which can be toggled on or off in Practice Admin. The default setting is OFF, meaning patients can't autonomously add themselves to the Waitlist without your practice first enabling this setting. When the setting is ON, there are various Waitlist entry points that can be found on your Healthengine Profile and within your Practice's booking form that encourage a patient to add themselves to a Waitlist slot if no suitable time is available.
To activate this setting:
- Within Practice Admin, go to Bookings > Waitlist > Preferences
- Under the Patient Access section, turn the toggle ON to allow patients to add themselves or OFF to stop them from adding themselves
Can individuals add others to the waitlist?
Yes. We appreciate that some people make bookings on behalf of family members or friends, and the waitlist request form can be done on behalf of someone else. It is important to ensure the booking details when an appointment becomes available are correct however, to ensure the booking is for the correct patient.
Do Waitlist entries expire?
Yes. When submitting a waitlist request, patients are asked if there is a date they'd like to be removed from the Waitlist by. This is normally filled in if a patient only has a short window they'd like to be contacted for an appointment in, such as when they have already booked an appointment but would like to be contacted if something comes up sooner. If the nominated expiry date passes, then the patient record is removed from the Waitlist page in Practice Admin automatically.
Additionally, all waitlist requests expire 6 months post submission to ensure the waitlist is up to date.
What does the Waitlist text to a patient look like?
The message to the patient has some level of customisation to allow for your practice to include the practitioners name and proposed appointment time, but overall follows the same format of including the patient's name, your practice name, the proposed appointment date, and a link to make a booking.
For more information on the Patient experience, see here.
Do patients need to select a practitioner?
No - there is an option for the patient to select "No preferred practitioner" if they don't mind which practitioner they see.
Does sending a patient a Waitlist SMS reserve that slot?
No. The patient receiving the Waitlist SMS is sent to the same booking form any patient can access, with all available dates and times shown. There is no ability at this stage to reserve a slot for a Waitlist.
Do I need to use the Waitlist SMS function?
If you would prefer to still call or email your patients regarding their position on the Waitlist, you can still use Healthengine's waitlist feature without the SMS element. We ask patients to include their mobile and email address on their submission form so that if your practice still wishes to contact them directly you are able too.
You can see the patient's contact details when you click on their individual entry in the Waitlist table.
Can a patient make an appointment and be on a waitlist at the same time?
Yes - there will be times where a patient will make a booking but put themselves on the waitlist in case there is a cancellation sooner. If the patient does make an earlier booking, they will need to cancel their original one to ensure they are only attending the number of appointments they require, unless they still want to attend their original appointment.
Is there a limit to the number of patients I can contact for one appointment slot?
If you choose to contact patients via the Bulk SMS method, you can select up to 10 individual entries at a time to send a message too.
How are entries sorted on the Waitlist?
The sorting on the waitlist shows the oldest waiting patient at the top, in descending date added order, so you can easily at a glance see the patients who have been waiting on the waitlist the longest first.
How many entries are on the Waitlist?
Practice Admins waitlist table shows 50 entries at any one time. If your practice has more than 50 entries, we recommend using the filters to ensure you see all patients matching your criteria.
What happens if an appointment time is no longer available?
As slots are not reserved, there will be cases when a patient tries to book a waitlist slot that is no longer available. If that happens, the patient is able to make a reselection for an available date and time as part of their booking journey. If that time doesn't suit them, they can just ignore the SMS and wait and see if they are contacted again.
For more information on the Patient experience, see here.
What happens if I don't offer appointments for new or existing patients?
If a patient tries to add themselves to a waitlist as an new patient, when a practice only has appointment types for existing patients, or doesn't accept new patients, the patient is prevented from adding themselves to the waitlist and sees an error explaining the practice doesn't offer those appointment types. This is to ensure that ineligible patients don't add themselves to your waitlist.
Can patient's access the Waitlist from the app?
Yes! Patients can add themselves to the waitlist via your profile on the app or the web.
Can I automate Waitlist?
There are two options provided to make it easier to match an opening/cancellation with patients on the waitlist.
Option 1 - Get notified when an available appointment match a patient on the waitlist
Turning this option on will notify the nominated practice staff when there is one or many patients on the waitlist that matches an appointment slot that has become available, allowing you to select which patients you want to notify about this availability.
Option 2 - Automatically notify patients when an available appointment match a patient on the waitlist
This is the set and forget option where we will automatically send out an SMS to one or many patients on the waitlist that matches an appointment slot that has become available allowing you to get on with other tasks instead.
Note: To prevent the SMS being perceived as SPAM automation is restricted to only notifying the same patient once per day, even if there are multiple instances of new appointments becoming available
To enable your preferred option:
In Prac Admin simply go to the waitlist preference page and select your preferred option.
If not selection is made then waitlist will continue to work as per current implementation meaning you will manually have to locate patients on the waitlist to notify for an available appointment.
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